Free Thinner Than Skin by Uzma Aslam Khan

avoiding a streetlamp, her pace growing in speed as she pronounced, “Oh Nadir, I can arrange for us to go!”
    “What do you mean?”
    “We’ve applied for funding. We’ll get it.”
    “We?”
    “Wesley. You’ll meet him. A comparative study of glaciers in northern Pakistan and northern California. Call it a fact-finding mission, to see if I
can
work in my country!”
    “You will get it, or—already have?”
    She soared into my arms, flinging us side to side, before presenting the route she believed we ought to take. We’d fly from Karachi to Rawalpindi, then, depending on the weather, take either a bus or plane to Gilgit. From Gilgit we’d take a bus to Hunza, from where the two glaciers that would best fit the requirements of her preliminary study were easily accessible. These were Batura Glacier and Ultar Glacier. Did I know of them? Of course. Did I know how dangerous they could be? Of course. Did I need to practice climbing around here, first? I shot her a look. She brought that man called Wesley into the conversation too. They’d apparently worked together on Whitney Glacier on Mount Shasta, where they collected and “dated” ice samples. Did I care how? No, I did not.
    Naturally, throughout this monologue, there was no mention of Kaghan Valley.
    Later that night, back in my apartment, she let me photograph her naked for once, torquing her spine to artificially recreate the image I first fell in love with.
    “Why?” I asked. “Why today?”
    She peeled off her sweater, shirt, bra, still delirious with the joy of having skillfully engineered her
return
. And all this time I’d believed she was waiting for me to say yes. There was never any consent involved. We were going.
    “Why today?” I insisted.
    She giggled. It was as if she were drunk and wanting to have sex with me after refusing when sober. It was her choice, yet I was having to make it.
    “Come on, Nadir. Pick up your camera. I know you’re dying to.”
    “Actually, I’m not.”
    “Sure about that?”
    I hesitated. To say yes would mean choosing no. I picked up my camera.
    I didn’t enjoy it. In those moments, I didn’t want Farhana, neither behind my lens nor in the flesh. Even when she wound her braid around her, I couldn’t see the calla lily. It was all too conscious, too rehearsed. Hadn’t she planned it all—the visit to her father, the walk home, the seemingly innocent question about northern Pakistan, the news,
the news
, and now this? And yet, and yet. As I put her through my lens and captured that twisting torso, her ribs so protruding tonight, a thought flickered in my mind. Was it her pleasure that was dulling mine? I shook the thought away. No, this jeannie was just
fine
out of the bottle (even if she bent so far out of the bottle surely her spine would crack). I snapped another dozen shots. No, that wasn’t it. It wasn’t even pleasure. More like victory. I could see it in her gaze. It had killed the wonder this moment was always meant to hold. As she adjusted her hips and I kept on snapping, I tried to conjure it up, this wonder, this thing which cannot always be there, which is entirely fleeting and numinous, which, like luck, or talent, or wealth, cannot be equally distributed betweenthose who love, between those who mate.
Snap!
She was raising her chin so high. She was rising from the bed. She was turning off all the lights.
    When it was over and she fell asleep, I hurried out into the night, a disturbed man.
    Even the act of seeing becomes a theft, even a murder
.
    I hated the conversation I’d had with her father earlier that day. It wasn’t even a conversation. I hated today.
    So I was to go back as her escort. When I had just begun earning. She had a great salary. She’d keep building up her resumé, while I became the porter. Photographing her was my payment for her pleasure.
    No, no, I had to stop thinking of her this way.
    I asked God to help me feel the way I normally felt on my solitary walks.
Empty